Bitter medicine for the Centre

 

The Supreme Court has set up a three-member committee headed by former Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha to perform the statutory functions of the Medical Council of India.

Issues which needs reform on urgent basis are:

• Need to reduce the cost of medical education and increase access in different parts of the country.
• Need to improve the doctor-to-population ratio, which is one for every 1,674 persons, as per the parliamentary panel report, against the WHO-recommended one to 1,000.
• Need to remove bottlenecks to start medical colleges, such as conditions stipulating the possession of a vast extent of land and needlessly extensive infrastructure, and to considerably rectify the imbalance, especially in underserved States.
• The primary criterion to set up a college should only be the availability of suitable facilities to impart quality medical education.
• The development of health facilities has long been affected by a sharp asymmetry between undergraduate and postgraduate seats in medicine.
• There are only about 25,000 PG seats, against a capacity of 55,000 graduate seats. The Lodha committee will review this gap.
• National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test, some States
• Will addresses issues such as the urban-rural divide and language barriers.

The single most important issue that the Lodha committee would have to address is corruption in medical education, in which the MCI is mired.

Appointing prominent persons from various fields to a restructured council would shine the light of transparency, and save it from reverting to its image as an 'exclusive club' of socially disconnected doctors.